


the house was awake (the shadows and monsters)

by SafelyCapricious



Series: things you find in a graveyard [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Sansa-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 03:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: Most of the families talk about their magic — the magic they used to have and what they can still do.The Starks don’t. At all.But they say that the Starks are werewolves.





	the house was awake (the shadows and monsters)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Control" by Halsey <strike>i hate titles, which i am 1000% sure everyone knows.</strike>
> 
> This is part of my attempt at fictober. Day eight, what the fuck man. I don't know either. 
> 
> All of my life choices are a mistake. 
> 
> Okay so, this is theoretically going to be the first part of a larger work and would eventually be Oberyn/Sansa/Ellaria. BUT this can and does stand alone as a little piece of world building, so be not afraid if you don't ship it. (Also for now this is being marked as complete because if I do succeed in writing more I'll make it a new series and just attach the works <strike>for some reason that works better with my issues of not doing WIPS</strike>).

Most of the families talk about their magic — the magic they used to have and what they can still do. 

The Starks don’t. At all. 

The children are given Direwolves when they’re young, and perhaps this is meant to be their representation of the magic they claim to have — but they don’t claim it as such. They simply say it’s their birthright. 

The Starks used to turn into wolves, is the magic of their past. 

Perhaps it’s just that coming up with a way to fake that would be too hard. 

Or perhaps it’s something else. 

The Stark girl who is a hostage in King’s Landing is fascinating to watch. She’s claimed hostage rights — refusing their attempts to call her a ward of the crown by citing laws that haven’t been invoked in centuries. And as such they haven’t been able to marry her off — much as they clearly want to. 

He’s heard a rumor, that Baratheon — before his unfortunate goring — had tried to get her betrothed to his eldest, but his oldest friend had refused the request on grounds of the Starks not doing well outside of the North. 

Oberyn is, now, rather of the opinion that rather nothing but the North could survive the Starks, not if this is how a hostage behaves. 

Which isn’t to say she isn’t on her best behavior — she is. It’s just that her best behavior is a marvel to watch. 

She’s been beaten, the rumors say, before those who understand hostage rights were able to step in. Her wolf was sent away on the road to King’s Landing, back with her sister and her sister’s wolf — only Ned Stark’s wolf had been deemed ‘trained’ enough to be allowed into the city. 

“You’re as brilliant as you are handsome, my king,” she says, serenely over the meal — and Oberyn wonders if anyone else has noticed that she’s been given the toughest cuts of meat and the dullest silverware, and yet she is still able to take small graceful bites, her teeth cutting through the meat easily. 

He wonders if everyone else thinks her vapid as she sings insults as praise against those holding her captive — he wonders how they could not see through her. 

Mostly he wonders how she manages to keep her gaze lowered and still, somehow, appear as if she’s seeing everything around her at the same time.

They must do something, the Starks, to train their children like wolves, even if they aren’t any longer. Even if they never speak of it. 

It’s clever, and underhanded in a way that Oberyn doesn’t associate with the Starks, but nothing else makes sense. 

All of the houses used to have magic, none of them do any longer. That is fact. It’s also fact that all of the oldest houses try to keep up the myth of their old magics. The balance is kept because none can call the others on their lies of still possessing it without also revealing themselves. 

For Oberyn this meant consuming poisons in such small quantities throughout his childhood that now he’s immune to all of the poisons he’s aware of, and has created a host of new ones to use. After all, the Martells were born immune to all poisons and able to command snakes since time immemorial and those things must stay true. 

Doran has made a point to search out the truth behind the other houses, though he hasn’t always been successful. 

So Oberyn knows the Tyrell’s ability to grow anything, anywhere, is due to a special mixture they add to the ground and not the magic they used to have. He knows the Lannister’s ability to ‘make gold’, is now simply mines and sleight of hand. He knows the Baratheon’s ability to ride anything, no matter how wild, is simply skill and training. 

Which is one of the reasons the reactions to Robert Baratheon being gored by the boar he dared to ride were as harsh as they were — and why there are now so many kings trying to claim the throne. After all, if the Baratheons have lost their magic then there’s no place for them, anymore.

Of course, the rest of them must support the king or their own lack of magic would also come to light and — 

Doran never did, Oberyn remembers, manage to ferret out how the Starks were claiming to still have magic. They aren’t a boastful lot. 

And one glance at the hostage Stark convinces him he won’t get any secrets from her — but the urge to try itches behind his skin. Ellaria must sense something of it, as she whacks him lightly with her fan and draws his attention back to her before he can follow the girl along an empty garden path. 

It’s for the best, he tells himself, and tries to soothe the urge to find out answers — the urge to find out if the saying is true. A wounded animal is more dangerous, they say, and even if you cut off a wolf’s head it can still bite. 

Of course, they say the same about snakes. 

***

It’s past midnight and his feet have taken him from his rooms to haunt the rest of the keep. This is where his sister died. Where his sister poisoned the air so heavily, to kill the host coming for her and her children that she too would have died — and so they’d jumped. She’d done what had to be done, to preserve the myth of Martell and Targaryen magic before they could be put to trial by fire. 

It is a haunted place and he does not sleep easily beneath this roof.

Others don’t, either, he sees as he glances out a window towards where the small Godswood resides and sees her. She’s a shadow of a girl, but she turns her head at something he cannot hear where he is, and her eyes catch the light of a torch and glow eerily yellow. 

It’s over in an instant and she’s gone and his heart shouldn’t be beating as hard as it is. 

He shouldn’t be as frightened as he is, for a moment, of a girl who is less than six and ten and a hostage besides. 

***

“Lady Stark,” he says, intercepting her in the garden. Ellaria’s grip on his arm is tight, and he wonders what she sees. 

The Stark girl doesn’t look up, eyes still downcast, as she curtseys just as much as she should and not an iota more — for the second daughter of a high house to a second son of the same. “Prince Martell,” she says, and then Oberyn catches a quick quirk of her lip and a flash of teeth that he thinks might be a smile, “Lady Sand.” 

“Oh,” says Ellaria, surprised, hand gesturing at her side, “I’m not a lady.” 

The Stark girl raises her eyes, and though there’s no light here that catches them so they glow, Oberyn realizes why she keeps them down so often now — for there is nothing tame hiding behind them. “Yes,” she agrees, voice like wind through the trees, “I don’t suppose any of us are,” her gaze cuts to Oberyn for a moment and her lips quirk again, before she’s looking back at dusty shoes. “If you’ll excuse me,” she murmurs, and Oberyn finds himself too shocked to move before she’s gone. 

“She,” Ellaria says after they’ve regained equilibrium and have found a place to sit in the garden, “is a wolf.” 

Oberyn glances at his paramour, and though he thinks she’s using it metaphorically he cannot shake the feeling that — “They say that the Starks are werewolves,” he says, and then he thinks to the North and how they’ve clung to their old gods and so rarely venture out of their woods and, “and I think they might be right.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I'm still working on my other WIP Sanberyn, it's just that this has taken my life over for the moment. (And by this I mean fictober...) But you can always find me [on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/capriciouswrites)if you wanna chat! It'll be fun, I promise.
> 
> Not edited enough, let me know if anything looks wonky!
> 
> And yeah, there is a not small chance there's gonna be more of this written for fictober so just keep an eye out! 
> 
> Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought! I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
